PREFERENCE BY THE FEMALE. 415 



of their own species, so that they may be kept with several cocks 

 . during a whole season and not one egg out of forty or fifty will 

 prove fertile. On the other hand, with the Long-tailed duck 

 (Harelda glacialis), "it has been remarked," says M. Ekstrom, 

 "that certain females are much more courted than the rest. Fre- 

 "quently, indeed, one sees an individual surrounded by six or 

 "eight amorous males." Whether this statement is credible, I 

 know not; but the native sportsman shoot these females in order 

 to stuff them as decoys.''^ 



With respect to female birds feeling a preference for particular 

 males, we must bear in mind that we can judge of choice being 

 exerted, only by analogy. If an inhabitant of another planet were 

 to behold a number of young rustics at a fair courting a pretty 

 girl, and quarreling about her like birds at one of their places of 

 assemblage, he would, by the eagerness of the wooers to please her 

 and to display their finery, infer that she had the power of choice. 

 Now with birds, the evidence stands thus; they have acute powers 

 of observation, and they seem to have some taste for the beautiful 

 both in color and sound. It is certain that the females occa- 

 sionally exhibit, from unknown causes, the strongest antipathies 

 and preferences for particular males. When the sexes differ in 

 color or in other ornaments the males with rare exceptions are 

 the more decorated, either permanently or temporarily during 

 the breeding-season. They sedulously display their various or- 

 naments, exert their voices, and perform strange antics in the 

 presence of the females. Even well-armed males, who, it might 

 be thought, would altogether depend for success on the law of bat- 

 tle, are in most cases highly ornamented; and their ornaments 

 have been acquired at the expense of some loss of power. In other 

 cases ornaments have been acquired, at the cost of increased risk 

 from birds and beasts of prey. With various species many indi- 

 viduals of both sexes congregate at the same spot, and their court- 

 ship is a prolonged affair. There is even reason to suspect that 

 the males and females within the same district do not always 

 succeed in pleasing each other and pairing. 



What then are we to conclude from these facts and considera- 

 tions? Does the male parade his charms with so much pomp and 

 rivalry for no purpose? Are we not justified in believing that the 

 female exerts a choice, and that she receives the addresses of the 

 male who pleases her most? It is not probable that she con- 

 sciously deliberates; but she is most excited or attracted by the 

 most beautiful, or melodious, or gallant males. Nor need it be 

 supposed that the female studies each stripe or spot of color; that 

 the peahen, for instance, admires each detail in the gorgeous 

 train of the peacock — she is probably struck only by the general 



32 Quoted In Lloyd's 'Game Birds of Sweden,' p. 345. 



